Songs of Freedom: Episode Two

Matthew Bolin discovered popular music could be a good thing at age 13. During a field trip to the local college library, he found Rolling Stone’s “100 Best Albums, 1967-1987” issue, and a great and glorious world far beyond the lands of Lionel Richie and Huey Lewis opened up. In the years since, Rolling Stone has gone downhill, but Matthew has moved up in the world, and will eventually claim his title as “America’s Librarian” sometime before 2020. Book it.

For the second episode of “Songs of Freedom”, Matthew Bolin and Lyana Fernandez focus on the Occupy movement, especially its beginning point at Occupy Wall Street.

For the second episode of “Songs of Freedom”, Matthew Bolin and Lyana Fernandez focus on the Occupy movement, especially its beginning point at Occupy Wall Street (OWS). Lyana gives her personal reflections of the two times she went down to OWS, and the roles she saw music play there as political expression, entertainment, and source of communal power. They talk about the musicians that have shown up at OWS, what they’ve performed, if they performed, and the differences between artists who take part out of support, versus those who take part as a form of self-promotion.

Later, Matthew and Lyana interview musician Geosafari about his new EP Protest Songs (Are Dead), his background as a political songwriter, the link between his involvement in Freeganism and initial connection to Occupy Wall Street, and his participation in-and observations of-the movement.

After the interview Matthew and Lyana continue to talk about musicians and the Occupy movement, looking specifically at one person who practically came out of hiding to perform for OWS, and another much more popular artist who was “supposed” to play but didn’t. This leads into a critique of a recent piece by punk legend Henry Rollins about music and the movement, and the cynicism he appears to have in regards to bands actually attaching themselves to political movements nowadays.

Finally they preview the third episode, which will focus mainly on MTV and its (mostly limited) role in politics, both in the past and today.

Note: This episode was recorded just before the ejection of OWS from their “homebase” in Zucotti Park–thus the absence of commentary on this event and similar actions towards the movement in other cities which have taken place since then. These more recent events will be touched upon in the third episode.

Special thanks to Friend-of-Popdose Thierry Côté and his blog Sonic Weapons for up-to-date information on the artists attending and performing at the various Occupy locations across the globe.